a mobilized year

Whether you know it as “Blue on Blue,” “Friendly Fire,” or "fratricide," the underlying matter is ugly. Downright ugly.

I had the unfortunate duty recently of investigating a Blue on Blue incident. The situation involved soldiers in one vehicle firing upon soldiers in several other vehicles. The events did not suggest any intentional wrongdoing. The vehicles belonged to different units and neither knew the other was there. None of the vehicles however strictly followed all the rules we have set up to prevent such an event.

Blue on Blue incidents are anything but new. I’ve read figures that estimate more than 15% of American deaths in World War II were due to friendly fire. With all the gadgets, electronic tracking, and refined procedures that we now have in place, the articles I’ve read recently in the public press seem to suggest that we really haven’t made much of a dent in that figure.

There are typically three causes of a fratricide incidents: (1) misidentifying friendly forces as enemy; (2) missing enemy forces and hitting friendlies as “collateral damage”; and (3) firing a weapon system incorrectly or accidentally in the wrong direction (e.g., field artillery, mortars).

Regardless of the cause, Blue on Blue incidents are very destructive. It starts with the obvious: one or more soldiers or marines are injured or killed by the acts of a fellow American. The life of the injured soldier is changed forever. The lives of the spouse, children, brothers, sisters, parents, and good friends of the injured or killed soldier are also changed forever. For those who escape from the incident with their lives, often times they will have permanent disabilities: lost hands, feet, arms and legs are common, and blindness, burns, and brain damage are far from uncommon. That’s the obvious part.

The not so obvious parts can also be devastating. Blue on Blue situations affect those unhurt—both those firing and those fired upon but not hit. There is an incredible feeling of guilt for those who fired. Here they are serving their country, doing what they think is right. And, they kill or permanently injure another American by a simple motion of pulling a trigger. They may or may not have done anything wrong. It doesn’t matter, the guilt is still there. There is also typically a significant loss in confidence. If not addressed, this can lead to depression or arguably worse, hesitation, which could jeopardize the soldier’s life and those around him if he’s put in harms way and hesitates or second guesses himself at a critical moment. The morale of that soldier’s unit can also plummet. Dissension and alienation within the unit happens frequently, at least for a period of time.

On the other side, the soldiers who were fired upon but not hurt may also lose confidence and perhaps more importantly, trust in their fellow soldiers or marines around them or from other units. It’s difficult enough to focus on defeating enemy IEDs, small arms fire, and RPGs that can be anywhere and go off at anytime. Adding to the mix the risk of friendly fire ratchets up that stress. It can lead to cynicism about coalition forces, paranoia, and unhealthy rivalries and dissension between units. When doing a dismounted patrol, the last thing that I would want to think about is whether that group of HMMWVs that are driving by me on the main supply route recognize that I am not AIF.

During my investigation, I was interviewing one of the soldiers who was fired upon. This particular soldier was not injured. He was clearly shook up by the event though. After asking him whether he had anything to add to his statement, he said with a nervous laugh that his buddies told him that instead of a CIB (combat infantryman badge), he would be “awarded a CFB.” “You know,” he said, “a Combat Friendly Badge.” For an infantryman, taking and/or returning enemy fire is sort of a right of passage in war. The Army gives a nod to the grunt by awarding him a CIB when that right of passage gate is passed. The CFB comment sort of emphasized to me some of the ugliness of Blue on Blue. There’s no such nod for a friendly fire incident (not that I advocate that there should be). But that soldier's life was every bit at risk as if it were the enemy's bullet. Everyone just wants the whole thing to go away—“learn from the mistakes,” try to forget about it, and move on.

The Pat Tillman story is a fairly public example of it. After the initial “cover up” was uncovered and various people apparently changed their stories, it became clear that his death was due to a Blue on Blue incident. The greatness of the American Hero that Pat Tillman was, is somehow stained by the fact that it was a fellow soldier’s bullet that killed him, rather than an enemy’s bullet. It makes no difference in my mind though. It doesn’t change who he was, what he gave up, and what he died for. But because of the fact that we are embarrassed and ashamed that one of our true heroes lost his life because of the actions of another one of our own, many of us think about Pat Tillman differently knowing he was killed by a fellow ranger. Somehow, because Tillman was associated with fratricide, he is less of a hero. That's wrong.

We all want fratricide to go away, we are doing a lot to make it go away (training, equipment, procedures, technologies, etc.), yet, we are very unsuccessful in making it go away. And when it happens, we’re either finger pointing, in a cover up mode, or struck with a malaise of not knowing how else to effectively prevent it without threatening force protection (i.e., security) or mission accomplishment. In all the years we've been at war as a nation, we for some reason have not been able to conquer fratricide, even though, logically, we should be able to through more training and better discipline. It’s been an issue I've struggled with and another lesson for me on the hardness of war.